“Y’are a milksop, Will,” declared Henrietta in disgust, picking dirt from beneath her fingernails with the sharp end of a twig. “I am certain that if you defy your father, he will admire ye for it in the end. He may be difficult at first—”
“Oh, you live in cloud cuckoo land,” Will interrupted. “There is nothing feeble about facing reality. Is there, Sir Daniel?”
Daniel regarded the squabbling pair wearily. They had been at it all afternoon and he was heartily sick of it. Outside the barn where they sheltered, the rain fell in a cold, drenching sheet. Now and again a gust of wind would drive an icy wave through the unglazed window and fling the door back on its hinges. There were holes in the roof and the water dripped steadily onto the already damp straw. The horses stood, heads hanging in resigned misery; the humans huddled against the wall, cold, tired, and hungry. The odors of wet horseflesh, moldy straw, and none-too-clean people filled the dank air, adding to the desolation.
“I do not see why you should have to appeal to Sir Daniel all the time,” complained Henrietta. “Why cannot ye make up your own mind for a change?”
“I have made up my mind,” snapped Will. “You will just not listen to sense. My father would never forgive an elopement. He does not object to the match, but he will not permit me to marry you against your father’s will. You convince Sir Gerald to permit it, and then there will be no difficulties.”
“Oh, you know that is impossible!” Henrietta cried. “He would see me dead rather than happy. If we were wed, we could find work, couldn’t we?”
“But I do not wish to find work,” Will said, sighing heavily. “I wish to be Will Osbert, Esquire, of Osbert Court.”
“Oh, I do not think you love me the least little bit!” Henrietta exclaimed. “You have no romance in your soul, and no courage.”
“There are times,” Will said deliberately, “when I do not even like you.”
“That is the most dastardly thing to say!” Henrietta flung herself upon him, rolling in the damp straw.
With an exclamation of exasperation, Daniel grabbed the belt at the back of her britches and hauled her off her opponent. “If you do not behave yourself, Mistress Ashby, you will find yourself out in the rain!”
“Then I shall get the ague,” she objected. “And I shall have the fever again, and—”
“Quiet!” But his lips twitched despite his ferocious tone. “I do not wish to hear another word out of you.”
Henrietta slumped into her corner again, hugging her knees, shivering in baleful silence. The rain dripped monotonously and the wind howled; the horses shuffled on the straw; a rat scurried across the barn floor. This dismal state of affairs continued until the door was flung open to admit a dripping Tom.
“There’s bread and cheese and ale,” he announced, dumping his packets onto the floor. “There’s more Roundheads in town than fleas on a dog. A man can’t move without a pass.”
“Why do we not try to acquire passes?” Henrietta asked, her usual sunny humor restored as she fell upon the bread and cheese. “We have been a week upon the road and this hiding grows monstrous tedious.”
“Was it an adventure ye were expecting?” Daniel inquired dryly, taking a deep draught of ale.
“I did not think it would be quite so uncomfortably tedious,” she said through a mouthful. “But if we had passes, we could travel openly and stay in inns, could we not?”
“Of course we could,” said Will, who had still not recovered his equanimity. “But we are hardly traveling in this fashion through choice. Are you suggesting we present ourselves at the nearest military post and ask politely for passes?”
Daniel raised his eyes heavenward as he waited for the explosive response to this heavy sarcasm. It did not come, however.
“I am not suggesting you should,” she said thoughtfully, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “But if Tom could procure me some women’s clothes, those of a servant girl would be best, I might be able to spin a tale to the officers that would suffice.” She looked at Will. “I am quite accomplished at spinning tales, am I not?”
He nodded and a reluctant grin spread across the freckled face. “Aye, that y’are. ’Tis an accomplishment that has saved ye from many a scrape.”
“And you,” she said. “What think ye, sir? I will say that I wish to visit my sick father—a good Parliamentarian—in London. And that I would be accompanied by…by…” She frowned, one hand gesturing vaguely as if she would pluck the words from the air. “By my grandfather and my brother,” she finished triumphantly. “And Tom has kindly offered to provide escort since my grandfather is rather feeble, and just one man cannot offer sufficient protection against marauding Cavaliers and highwaymen.”
Daniel struggled to grasp the role of enfeebled ancient that had clearly been allotted him. “I am to grow a white beard, I assume, and adopt a shambling gait and toothless mumble.”
Henrietta laughed. “Nay, I do not see why that should be necessary.”
“What a fortunate man I am,” he declared.
“If I spin the tale aright,” Henrietta explained, ignoring the pointed irony, “there is no reason why any of you, except perhaps Tom, should have to show yourselves. They will issue the passes in the names I give, and once we have ’em no one will question them. If I say that you are nine and seventy and they put that upon the pass, then we may easily fashion a two out of the seven.”
“Sweet Jesus,” groaned Daniel. “Nine and seventy!”
“I do not think you are taking this seriously, sir,” Henrietta said indignantly. “I am quite in earnest, I assure ye.”
“’Tis a nonsensical plan.” Daniel broke off a hunk of barley bread from the loaf. “I understand you would have done with our present discomfort, but nursery games of make-believe are not the way.”
Henrietta flushed at this dismissal. “’Tis not a nursery game. I know I can make it work if I but have the clothes. Tom may accompany me. There is nothing to say that he is for King not Parliament, and I am sure he will agree to say that he is for Parliament. Would you not, Tom?” She looked in appeal at the trooper, stolidly eating bread and cheese while the debate raged around him.
“If’n it’d serve a purpose,” he agreed. “But Sir Daniel has the right of it. ’Tis a crazy plan…moon-mad.”
Henrietta said nothing, but her mouth lost its soft curve and her jaw took on a rather determined set that Will at least recognized with a stab of foreboding.
They remained in the barn throughout the sodden afternoon. Daniel attempted to soften his dictatorial rejection of Henrietta’s plan, but she seemed impervious to all conversational tacks and all suggestions as to lighthearted ways in which to pass the time. In the end he gave up and lapsed into gloomy reflection. He could not accuse her of sulking, he decided, watching her through half-closed eyes. It was more as if she were deeply distracted by something.
Indeed she was deep in thought, making and discarding plans with a cool calculation. Without help, she would be obliged to carry out the scheme alone and in her present guise, but perhaps she could turn that to advantage. Suddenly aware of Sir Daniel’s covert scrutiny, she closed her eyes, yawning mightily as she leaned back against the barn wall, praying that he would not notice the betraying color she could feel creeping into her cheeks.
Daniel closed his own eyes. Sleep seemed the only way to pass the interminable hours until the rain should cease and they could start out again. Both Will and Tom had followed Harry’s example and there was little point in staying awake by himself. Within ten minutes, his deep, rhythmic breathing mingled with that of the others.
Henrietta’s eyes shot open. Stealthily, she got to her feet. Sir Daniel’s purse lay beside his saddlebags. Her furtive fingers extracted two crowns. She had no idea how much the passes would cost, but she could not appear to have great sums to spend. For a maid in her position a crown would amount to some considerable sacrifice—one that should convince the officers of her authenticity and genuine plight.
Tucking her hair into her knitted cap, fastening her leather jerkin and turning up the collar, she crept out of the barn into the gathering dusk where the rain had turned to a dismal drizzle. She ran across the barnyard, her booted feet squelching on the mud-puddled cobbles. The abandoned farmhouse, its blackened walls and roofless condition evidence of the fire that had driven away its inhabitants, loomed squat and slightly menacing in the misty gloom. She veered away across the fields toward the city of Nottingham lying some three miles distant.
Daniel was at first not alarmed by Harry’s absence when he awoke a half hour later. Reasoning that she was either visiting the still-intact privy at the rear of the farmhouse or stretching her legs now that the rain had slackened somewhat, he strolled outside himself. The sky was black with cloud, not a glimmer of moon or starshine, and an autumnal chill struck hard in the dank air.
A pitch-dark night was ill for traveling, he reflected, particularly when they were obliged to keep to the fields and woods. It was all too easy for a horse to miss his footing in a fox hole or blunder into the gorse and tear the skin of a hock. Mayhap they would be better advised to spend the night in this cheerless hole and risk a daytime journey on the morrow.
Frowning as he tried to make up his mind, he returned to the barn and was surprised to find that Harry had not returned. “Wherever could she have gone?” he demanded of the air and his two companions.
Tom shrugged, but Will chewed his lip and looked uneasy. “D’ye have some idea, Will?” Daniel asked, examining the young man carefully.
A pink flush stained Will’s cheeks, conflicting dramatically with the shock of red hair. “I beg your pardon, sir, for saying this, but ye shouldn’t have spoken as ye did to her. Harry doesn’t take kindly to having her ideas dismissed in such fashion, not when she’s set her heart on something and believes it will work.”
“Now, just a minute,” said Daniel in a slow, horrified realization of what Will was implying. “Are you trying to tell me that she has gone off in a passion?”
“Nay, sir.” Will scratched his head uncomfortably. “Not exactly. I think she has probably gone into Nottingham to try to acquire passes.”
“God’s good grace!” Daniel stared, horrendous images jostling in his head: Henrietta in her britches providing merry sport for a troop of lewd Roundhead soldiers in Nottingham Castle; Henrietta forced into revealing her true identity and that of her fugitive companions, together with their whereabouts; the imminent arrival of a troop of Roundheads bristling with pikes.
“A wild, hoity maid,” adjudged Tom, sucking on a piece of straw. “We’d best be away afore she brings the ’ole New Model down upon us.”
“We cannot leave, Tom,” Daniel said sharply. “We cannot risk her returning and finding us gone.”
“I will stay for her,” Will spoke up. “’Tis my responsibility, when all’s said and done. If it hadn’t been for me, she’d not have been here in the first place.”
Daniel gave a mirthless laugh. “I am not convinced of that fact, young Will. Mistress Ashby had no intention of accepting the destiny planned for her. Following you provided romantic excuse to flee.”
Will looked startled, as if such an idea had never occurred to him. “D’ye think she is not in love with me, then, sir?”
“I think she believes she is,” Daniel said. “I do not mean to prick your vanity—”
“Oh, no, sir, you have not,” Will hastened to reassure him. “I confess ’twould be something of a relief if it were the case.”
In spite of his present dismay, Daniel could not help smiling at this frank statement. Master Osbert was no stricken swain but the hapless victim of a considerably stronger will. He strode to the door, peering out into the blackness. An owl screeched and a small animal screamed in pain and fear. They were not reassuring sounds for hunted men. “Tom, you and Will ride from here some five or six miles to the south. Find some concealment and wait for me. If I do not come up with you by mid-morning, then ye must make shift for yourselves. I will remove from the barn and find some place where I may watch for her return. There is no reason why we should be caught like rats in a trap.”
They went their separate ways, Tom and Will trotting into the darkness, leading Harry’s nag. Daniel turned his charger loose in a field behind the farm and found himself a broad oak tree. It was an uncomfortable resting place; although the rain had ceased, the leaves dripped dolefully down his neck, his leg muscles cramped rapidly, and his mind turned to the savage contemplation of reprisals when and if Mistress Henrietta Ashby deigned to reappear.
Henrietta reached Nottingham Castle just as the great portcullis was being dropped for the night. “I pray ye, sir, let me through,” she said, genuinely out of breath. “I would have speech with the officer who issues passes for safe conduct.”
The soldiers in the gatehouse stared in astonishment. The voice was that of a country girl, the garb of a lad. “What be ye?” one of them demanded roughly. “Art wench?”
“Aye,” she agreed, pulling off her cap to free the corn silk-colored mass that tumbled in profusion down her back. “’Deed I am, good sir, but I’ve need of this habit. ’Tis not safe for a maid along the roads in these times.” She shuddered. “There’s Royalists and all sorts about, armed to the teeth and ready to make sport with a simple wench.”
The soldiers laughed uproariously. “Aye, I’ll be bound. Y’are a sweet morsel, wench. Come ye in, then, if’n y’are coming.”
They opened the postern gate, and Henrietta slipped by them, stifling a squeak as a hand came down in an intimate pat on the curve of her backside. “I beg ye, good sir, take me to the captain in charge of passes.”
“All in good time.” The soldier chuckled. “Ye’ll be glad of a cup of ale on a night like this. ’Tis lonely in the guardroom, is it not, Jack? We’d be glad of a little company.”
Henrietta realized that she had not thought of this complication. She tugged her jerkin tighter over her breasts and showed her companions an anxious face. “If ye please, sirs, I’m in the most fearful haste. My father lies sick in London and I’ve to take me grandfer to ’im. ’E’s fallen on terrible hard times, my father has, although ’e’s powerful strong for Parliament. But if ’e passes on ’afore we reaches ’im, ’tis a pauper’s grave will receive ’im.”
Babbling frantically, she managed to dodge the hands that would stroke and pat, scampering up the narrow flight of stone stairs to the round chamber that housed the guards.
It was warm and cozy in there, a fire sizzling in the grate, a flagon of wine upon the stained plank table. Two soldiers, tunics unbuttoned, sat at their ease beside the fire. “Well, well, what ’ave we ’ere?” one of them said jovially. “What’ve ye found, Dick?”
“Why, ’tis a wench in lad’s garb,” chuckled Dick. “Wants passes for ’erself and ’er grandpa.”
“And my brother and ’is friend to provide escort,” Henrietta put in, the words tumbling over themselves. “Me grandfer is all of nine and seventy and can barely move ’isself.”
“Then ye’d best leave ’im be’ind,” declared Dick. “Can ye not take what’s needed without the old man?”
Henrietta swallowed and improvised wildly. “’Tis me father’s last wish to see ’is father afore he passes on. They’ve been on terrible bad terms these last years. And Grandfer says ’e’ll not rest easy ’imself without makin’ peace.”
Jack nodded sagely, tipping the flagon to his lips. “Aye, family troubles is bad. Was the same, as I remember, with my Uncle Job and ’is youngest. Didn’t speak two words for twenty year, though they lived but a spit apart.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and passed the flagon to Henrietta. “Take a drink, lass. ’Tis a raw night.”
“Nay, I thank ye,” Henrietta said hastily. “Pray take me to the captain.”
“’Tis not the captain as issues passes, wench,” one of the men by the fireside told her with a salacious chuckle. “’Tis the sergeant, and ye’ll ’ave to sweet talk ’im. Mebbe for a kiss, ’e’ll be willin’ to oblige.”
“I thought Cromwell’s men were not the kind to take advantage of a maid,” Henrietta said with a doleful sniff. “’Tis unkind when I’m in such distress.” She knuckled her eyes, trying to make them water convincingly. “I’ve never kissed anyone, not even my Ned, ’n we’re to be wed when I’ve got me bottom drawer together.”
Peeping at them through her fingers, she saw that she had struck the right note. These rough country men had their own rules, and a girl of their own kind, affianced and virtuous, would not meet with lewd treatment.
“Cease yer weepin’, wench,” Dick said gruffly. “No one means ye any ’arm. ’Tis just a bit ’o fun. But ye should not be paradin’ in them britches. ’Tain’t decent.”
“Nay, I am aware,” she said with another sniff. “’N Ned would ’ave summat to say if ’e knew. But what’s a maid to do with no man to protect ’er? ’Tis terrible times we live in.”
“Aye, that it is.” One of the fireside sitters stood up, fastening his tunic. “Come with me, lass. I’ll take ye to the sergeant. I’ve a maid not much bigger ’n ye at ’ome.”
Thankfully, Henrietta followed the soldier out of the round chamber along a stone-walled corridor to a heavy, ironbound wooden door. The trooper knocked. A growl bade them enter and Henrietta’s escort pushed her ahead of him into another fire-warmed chamber.
A bullet-headed man in an immaculate tunic sat at a big table. “Well,” he demanded. “What’s this then, Trooper Bates?”
Trooper Bates, standing rigidly to attention, explained the situation.
The sergeant listened impassively, his eyes fixed on the girl, who had little difficulty in looking petrified, since that was exactly how she felt. Henrietta knew only too well what happened to those suspected of treason who might have information to impart. Torture was used indiscriminately, and her sex would not protect her from the hideous fate of those who were broken in the dungeons of Nottingham Castle—broken only to meet the hangman. She shivered despite the sweat that misted her palms and gathered on her upper lip.
“Where does your father dwell, girl?” the sergeant asked when the trooper fell silent.
Henrietta had her answer prepared. “In Spittal Fields, sir, if you please.”
“His name?”
“Bolt, if you please, sir.”
“I’m not sure that I do,” the sergeant said irascibly. “Stop shaking, girl, no one’s going to harm ye. Cromwell’s New Model army doesn’t wage war on women and children.”
“No, sir,” Henrietta murmured, shaking now with relief. “But ’tis just that I’m desperate, sir. I don’t want me father to rest in a pauper’s grave. They say they don’t even wrap ’em afore they throws ’em in—” Great sobs burst from her lips, preventing further speech, and she buried her face in her hands.
“Odd’s bones,” muttered the sergeant, reaching for paper and quill. “Can’t abide weeping women. It’ll cost ye a crown, girl.”
“’Tis a great sum for me, sir.” Henrietta sniveled, reaching into the pocket of her jerkin for one of the coins. “But ’tis worth it to see me father buried decent.”
“A Malignant would give me five pound for such a pass,” the sergeant informed her irritably, pocketing the crown. “What are the names to go on here?”
“Bolt, sir,” Henrietta said. “I’m Meg Bolt, ’n me grandfer’s Daniel Bolt, ’n me brother’s Will Bolt, ’n ’is friend who’s comin’ fer protection is Tom…Tom Grant, sir.”
“And y’are going to Spittal Fields?”
“Aye, sir, if you please, sir.”
There was silence, disturbed only by the scratching of quill on parchment and Henrietta’s noisy sniffs. At last the sergeant shook the sandcaster over the parchment, dropped wax from the candle upon it, and pressed Parliament’s seal into the wax. “There.” He handed the parchment to her. “Ye may travel freely from here to Spittal Fields in the city of London, but nowhere else. If ye stray from the route and are challenged, this pass will not guarantee ye safe passage. ’Tis understood?”
“Aye, sir, yer honor, sir. I can’t thank ye enough, sir.” Backing to the door, clutching the precious parchment, Henrietta gabbled inanely, interspersed with frequent sniffs.
The sergeant impatiently waved the trooper after her. “See the wench beyond the gate, Bates. And I’ll thank ye to bring me no more of that kind this night.”
“Come along a’me, lass.” Trooper Bates smiled kindly. “’E’s not a bad sort, the sergeant, but ’e don’t like ’is evenings disturbed.”
In five minutes, Henrietta was outside the castle, safe conduct to London for three men and a woman in her jerkin pocket, and a three-mile walk through the dark night ahead of her. But exhilaration winged her feet—exhilaration and triumph. Sir Daniel and Tom had scorned her plan and even Will had been less than encouraging. Now, without a scrap of help from any of them, she had secured the passes that would enable them to travel swiftly and in some comfort. So jubilant was she that not even the thought of what journey’s end in London might bring could dampen her self-congratulation.
It was close to midnight when she reached the ruined farm. Only then did it occur to her to wonder what the others had made of her disappearance. She stood for a moment in the yard, her heart hammering, her eyes peering into the darkness, now lightened by the fleeting glimmer of a shy moon. Perhaps they believed her lost or taken by soldiers. If so, they would surely have left. They were intending to continue the journey by night as usual. Could they have done so? Abandoned her? No, Will would have known what she intended. He would have known that she could not have endured such a snub as Sir Daniel had administered without proving him wrong. Will would have made them stay for her return. He would have, wouldn’t he?
With a surge of panic, she ran to the barn and stood panting in the doorway, gazing into the deserted, pitchy shed. She did not need light to tell her it was empty of all but rats. There were no horsey stirrings and whifflings and no sense at all of a human presence.
“By God, Henrietta, how dare you do such a thing! How dare you disappear in such reckless, thoughtless fashion.”
She spun around with a cry, half of relief and half of alarm, at the enraged whisper behind her. “Oh, Sir Daniel, I thought you had left me.”
“’Twould be the least you deserve,” he said savagely. “I have spent the last four hours in the crotch of an oak tree, and heaven alone knows how Will and Tom are faring.”
“But I have a pass for all of us,” she said, the words tumbling over themselves as she felt for the parchment in her jerkin. “See.” She held it out to him. “I said I would do it, and I did.”
Daniel stared at the document. It was too dark to make out the script, but there was no mistaking the seal. “How the devil did you achieve this?”
“I said I would.” She could not conceal the smug note or the unspoken challenge, despite the feeling that Sir Daniel Drummond was not in a mood to respond to either with equanimity. “You did not believe it possible.”
“I do not entirely believe that you are possible,” he declared, pushing her into the barn. “Do not move one inch. I must fetch flint and tinder.”
Henrietta remained where she had been put until Daniel reappeared. Flint scraped against tinder and a golden glow of candlelight illuminated the space where they stood. He held the candle high and examined her carefully before turning his attention to the parchment. A low whistle escaped him.
“’Twould seem I underestimated you, Mistress Ashby. I will not do so again. And you—” He caught her chin, tilting her face. “You will never again disappear in such fashion. It is understood?”
“If you do not oblige me to do so, I will not,” she said simply. “I do not think you should be vexed, Sir Daniel. I am not taken prisoner. We have lost nothing and gained much.” Her big brown eyes regarded him earnestly, and her lower lip was caught between her teeth as she offered a questioning, hesitant smile.
It took a minute, but at last he laughed. It was a tiny sound to begin with, then, as relief and admiration at her outrageous audacity burgeoned to chase away the anger born of fear, gusts of mirth rose to the rafters. “You had best tell me the whole,” he gasped eventually. “We must stay here until dawn, when we can go in search of Will and Tom.”
“I am very hungry,” Henrietta said as reality reasserted itself, quashing exhilaration under an anticlimactic wash of fatigue. “But I suppose we do not have any supper. The guards offered me wine, but I was too afeard to take any.”
“With cause,” he observed. “We shared the bread and cheese and ale before Tom and Will went off. There is a little left in my saddlebag. I will fetch it for you, although going supperless to bed seems an apt penalty.” The amusement still lurked in his voice, however, and Henrietta heard no sting in the statement.
She ate hungrily, drank thirstily, and told her tale to an attentive audience. By story’s end, she could barely keep her eyes open and her words were lost in a series of yawns. “I beg your pardon, but I seem to be falling asleep.” She blinked like a dopey kitten, and he smiled, thinking not for the first time that Henrietta Ashby did have the most appealing countenance.
“Lie down then,” he suggested, picking up the horse blanket. She curled onto the straw and was asleep almost before he had tucked the blanket around her.
He lingered on his knees beside the slight figure, his hand resting on her shoulder where he had been adjusting the blanket. A puzzled frown drew his dark brows together over the aquiline nose and one finger moved almost without volition to trace the curve of her cheek, flushed delicately in sleep. What was it about this indomitable young hoyden that so disturbed him? It was long before Daniel Drummond joined her in sleep.